Hemisphere Games Reveals Osmos Linux Sales Numbers

An anonymous reader writes "Hemisphere Games analyzes the sales numbers for their Linux port of Osmos and ask themselves, 'Is it worth porting games to Linux?' The short, simple answer is 'yes.' Breakdown and details in the post." A few other interesting details: the port took them about two man-months of work, the day they released for Linux was their single best sales day ever, and they got a surprising amount of interest from Russia and Eastern Europe. Their data only reflects sales through their website, and they make the point that "the lack of a strong Linux portal makes it a much less 'competitive' OS for commercial development." Hopefully someday the rumored Steam Linux client will help to solve that.

Valve hasn't said a word.

[Beelzebud]

Until Valve says anything about a Linux client, it's just rumor and speculation.

And contrary to what Phoronix has reported for a couple of years now, Valve has not said one word about a Linux port.

One game?

[bonch]

One puzzle game proves that it's worth it to port to Linux?

If it took two months to port a puzzle game, imagine how much time and expenses it would take to port a big-name game with much higher technical demands and support requirements.

Interesting

[immakiku]

Gaming is one of the last things keeping people from switching to Linux entirely. Once the Linux gaming scene picks up steam (pun intended), "those in the know" will have no reason to retain an installation of Windows. The increase in user base will spur further development in the areas of Linux that are inferior to Windows at the moment.

Re:Two man-months?

[rasjani]

1) Actual porting of the game - if you read the article, the guy who did the port did not know the codebase from the start - you propably knew your codebase in and out ?
2) Multi format packaging - its not only about building debian rules or spec file and you are set - if you target multiple platforms and hardware architectures via proper packaging - you need to be checking a lot of build options with dependencies..
3) website changes
4) and testing ..

And last, possible promotion ?

Releasing stuff might not always be just about making the code compile and hoping it works..

Re:Two man-months?

[ZorbaTHut]

Yeah it is, you install vmware and drop a bunch of distros in. That week included testing on ubuntu 10.04, ubuntu 8.04, kubuntu 10.04, ubuntu 10.04-64, fedora 12, and debian 5.04.

(Doesn't currently work on ubuntu 10.04-64 but that's mostly due to me being lazy with 64-bit porting. Works on all the rest, though.)

Re:Valve hasn't said a word.

[Beelzebud]

No they have in no way confirmed a Linux client. Not at all. Show me one quote from someone at Valve confirming it. You can't because no such confirmation exists.

Don't get me wrong, I would LOVE to see a Linux client, but Valve hasn't said anything about it. The fact that people from Phoronix hacked together an alpha quality client is meaningless.

Re:Duh?

[Beelzebud]

I've read many tales about how he also spent most of their money on vanity items, and drove the business into the ground. Not to mention that 10 years ago Linux was a pain in the ass for a lot of people to set up and use. With distros like Ubuntu and Mint it's much more accessible now for people who simply want to play games, and not spend all their free time setting the system up.

Re:Remember DOS extenders?

[icebraining]

Imagine if games came in a live Linux CD-ROM. MS-Windows users could play those games with all the benefits of Linux

What benefits? I only see drawbacks:
- terrible loading times (wasting the hard drive advantage)
- having to reboot
- having to configure the network to play online games. Since it's a LiveCD, having to store those configurations in a USB disk or losing them
- wasting the integration of systems like Steam

In general, that would be like playing on a PS2 with better graphics. No thank you.

Re:Really good news

[hedwards]

That's unsurprising while being less bloated makes things snappier, it helps little for high end gaming.

Re:Remember DOS extenders?

[Anonymous Coward]

Plus how the drivers installed on the Linux LiveCD would be outdated the minute something new was released, and there would be no good way to patch the disc.

Re:Valve hasn't said a word.

[jvillain]

God what I wouldn't do for mod powers right now.

Re:Valve hasn't said a word.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, and if I had some, I'd immediately mod you offtopic and possibly troll. Your "input" adds absolutely nothing to this discussion.

(And neither does mine)